Home of TC Performance, Start Here!

Welcome to Bellm TCs. Thank you for your patience while we renovate the site. Product ordering is now available however many of the article pages still need to be uploaded and edited.

Welcome to the NEW Mike Bellm TCs, home of TC Performance backed by over 38 years of barrel work focused on the versatile, cost effective Thompson Center interchangeable barrel systems. Mike Bellm TCs and 1GUNSHOP.com are now T/C Authorized Dealers carrying ALL T/C firearms, parts and accessories. We are the pros the SHOOTERS and GUNSMITHS worldwide trust for performance and Factory Thompson Center Arms products, treating customers RIGHT since 1979. We LOVE T/Cs but care about you even more.

__________Bellm_________

Pronounced like the HELM of a ship.

One syllable.

When the TC guns don’t shoot to your satisfaction, we are the ONE COMPANY that puts feelings aside to spell out the fundamentals, giving you the TOOLS and KNOWLEDGE that will allow YOU to tune and maintain your T/C like an expert. Since you own or want to own the most versatile weapon on the planet, we are the one company that will take you by the hand and enable you to “Shoot Smart.”

Read the page below to avoid wasting a lot of time and money and not only saving yourself a lot of frustration but realizing how great the TC interchangeable barrel systems really can be!

We provide what you need to know and what you need to do to make the TC Encore/Pro Hunter/Endeavor and Contender/G2 guns work for you.

Frankly, all too often when a TC break open gun is not shooting or working right, this old adage applies:

Do it right the first time.

We enable YOU to do it right and to do it quickly and economically yourself. Every day someone wants to send their T/C in to us for work, which is great as we now have an FFL and are honored to do the work for you BUT you will need to be prepared for an earfull why you should do the work yourself first. All too often the majority of routine cleaning and tuning to the T/C can and should be done by YOU the owner, the only exception being is machine work to the barrel if needed and that’s where Mike Bellm is here to help.

Do the basics outlined below FIRST

Before you grab a phone please read this page and many of the other pages on our website in its entirety and go to the pages linked from it. Follow the logic. It is all based on years of specialized experience backed by good science, it all makes sense, and naturally it works!

No barrel is any better than the rest of the gun it is put on, no matter who made the barrel , how much money you paid for it, or how much “working up a load” you do.

If you think you can assemble one of millions of barrels and thousands of frames, shoot ammo with all sorts of variables, and expect the combination to shoot every time, let alone shoot sub-moa accuracy every time, right now is the time to stop living in a dream world.

No matter what you want to believe, it just cannot happen every time, and fact that it does happen as often as it does is a testament to the potential of the system.

There are reasons why the TC interchangeable barrel guns work great, and there are reasons why they don’t as well.

While “working up a load” is fun and challenging, as is trying all the various premium factory loads we have today, pouring hundreds of dollars worth of powder & bullets down a barrel trying to MAKE it shoot when it can’t for mechanical reasons simply makes no sense at all.

Follow the logic and you will see why it is necessary to go above and beyond normal policy and procedures.

There is no reason to blindly waste money shipping things back and forth to anyone,

pouring a fortune in ammo and components through a barrel trying to make it shoot when the rest of the gun has inherent problems that prevent it from ever working in the first place,

giving up when things don’t work after wasting a lot of money

taking a loss on barrels, or

giving up on the system as a whole

There are 6 main points in the TC interchangeable barrel weapon system that you can and must fix on a routine basis.

These are issues you best take care of yourself.

Truth is the average gunsmith is not specialized in the interchangeable barrel guns such as the Thompson Center Encore/Pro Hunter family and the Contender or newer G2. There are hundreds of sellers of products that don’t know a thing about this system much less how to make them work. While I enjoy shooting all types of weapons and have firearms training and knowledge beyond the normal dealer or gunsmith, this is the ONE weapon we have specialized in since 1979.

Sending a TC gun or barrel back to just anyone is the last thing you want to do. Policy and procedures fall dismally short of what you need to make the system work for YOU! You may get a report a barrel shoots well enough for them, but then they fail to tell you how to do it!

How it shoots for YOU is the only thing that matters!

YOU must be enabled to make the combinations of barrel, ammo, and frame work for YOU! That is what we do. We are about enabling YOU to do what must be done routinely yourself.

The same applies to any barrel maker, production or custom. No matter how good the barrel itself is, it is going to shoot no better than the rest of the system lets it.

If it does not shoot well, there is a reason. You have to eliminate those variables in the system as a whole before you can narrow it down to the barrel. And again, if it is narrowed down to the barrel, there is still a reason why the barrel does not shoot well.

Finding and correcting the problem in the barrel if possible makes a whole lot more sense than playing “barrel roulette” with the maker hoping to get lucky when the maker in all probability doesn’t have a clue why it does not shoot well in the first place.

These 6 weak links in the chain are things you can routinely take care of yourself :

Fit at the hinge

Headspace

Hammer Spring

Trigger Pull

Barrel Lockup

Plastic Stocks

If a barrel does not shoot these points are likely causes:

Loose fit at the hinge

Loose lockup at the locking bolts

The barrel is “bouncing” on the firing pin bushing and needs clearance

There is either too much headspace or no headspace

The factory hammer spring is too weak

The forend may be effecting the barrel’s harmonics or plastic stock flexing